


F is for Fantasy

by Psychodelikas



Series: The Alphabet of Dreams [7]
Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: And Jared, Detectives Straits and Reinhart, F/F, Sassy Vala, Sassy Zane, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, The answer to everything? Dreams, not necessarily in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 21:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12713697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychodelikas/pseuds/Psychodelikas
Summary: “The title said for your mind’s eye. When do we use our mind’s eye, Vala?”I wanted to tell her she was being ridiculous but then I heard myself say, “In our dreams.”“Exactly!” she agreed happy. “Now, what did you dream last night?”





	F is for Fantasy

“He did _what?!”_

“He threw me out!” I repeated hurt. “Just like that! The most amazing night of my life then bam! Out the window in an instant.”

“Damn,” Zanthe cursed, a deep frown over her forehead. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Ya think?” I scoffed.

“I mean, why go through all that trouble only to kick you out?” 

“Thanks, Zane…”

“Oh, spare me. You were thinking the exact same thing.”

_Yeah, well, you’re an ass for saying it out loud!_ I bit my lips so that I wouldn’t smile. “At least, I didn’t leave empty handed.”

“Oh, right!” my kooky best friend exclaimed. “What’s the book about?”

I realized then that after I had arrived home, I had thrown the book on my bed and phoned Zane. Until she arrived, I had played with Kyra, forgetting everything about it.

I picked up the light tome and opened to page one. I blinked at it stupidly then flipped through the pages.

“What?”

“Nothing!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, nothing!” I showed Zane the book. “It’s completely blank!”

She stared at the book as stupidly as I had. “Okay, I got nothing,” she concluded.

“Yeah,” I agreed with a scoff. I closed the book then threw it on the bed again. “I finally have something amazing happen to me then I’m banned from the club, and now I have a stupid book full of empty pages. Great. Somebody up there really hates me.”

Zane opened her mouth to answer but no sounds came out. Instead, she remained in that comical stance as her brain no doubted offered her an alternative explanation.

“What?” I asked to the point.

She slowly closed her mouth, a small smile playing at her lips. “Nothing…” she said silly.

I rolled my eyes. “Not in the mood, Zane.”

“What if you need a UV light to read it?”

I looked at her surprised. “Didn’t think of that,” I admitted. “That’s genius.”

“Why, thank you!”

“I mean, how else could you hide important information from prying eyes? That man really is a genius when he wants to be.”

“Screw you, Vala.”

“I love you too, Zane.”

But our amusement and happiness were short lived. After two days of her searching of her room, Zanthe had managed to find her UV lamp. It had been part of a special Harry Potter diary in which one wrote with invisible ink. Naturally, we had had to change the batteries but after randomly inspecting a few pages, we had learned that no ink of any kind had been used on that book.

The all too familiar clutches of frustration hugged me so tightly, I washed my hands of Jared Korrick and his damned castle. I put the book in the shelf but a better idea struck me. I would return it to its rightful owner. Just as I was about to retrieve the book, electricity replaced my blood so fast, I jumped in my spot and screamed. I retracted my hand as if I had just been burned.

For the following two weeks, all I did was lock myself away in classes. My dissertation was a heck of a lot more important to me than some stupid book. My anger and frustration were exactly what I needed in order to get some work done and before I knew it, I only had two more chapters to write, conclusion included.

However, the mysterious owner with eyes as mismatched as my hair was not so easily forgotten, as I learned the very hard way.

Night after night, my dreams got more and more intense to the point where I woke up speaking quite clearly. Well, speaking. I woke up moaning softly and holding the sheets rather tightly. It was a small miracle my parents didn’t hear anything. I refused to think that if they did, they didn’t say so because that would have been too much.

Zanthe spent all of her free time on the Net, trying on the one hand, to find out as much about Jared as she could, and on the other, to find out in how many ways one could write an entire book without using colored ink. Deep down, I knew she wouldn’t discover anything and I suspected she knew too. But I couldn’t help feeling just a little bit of hope every time she said she would search a different way.

In the middle of the third week after my banishment, I found myself staring at that book for the hundredth time. I did that a lot though. Right before I went to bed, I would stare at it, silently ordering it to tell me all of its secrets. I shook my head as I exhaled. I turned off the lights then threw the cover sheet over me.

_“…until you have read every single page…”_

I rose to a sitting position so fast, I almost jumped out of bed. My heart was beating frantically in my chest. I turned on the lights. My room was exactly as it had been only seconds previously.

But I could have _sworn_ I had heard Jared’s voice. My eyes went involuntarily to the shelf.

“Screw it,” I said determined.

I threw my legs out of bed then took the book out. I sat down on my chair and opened the cover. A blank page greeted me. I counted to five then turned it. I repeated that procedure until every single page was inspected then turned.

The moment I closed the second cover, I gasped loudly. Electricity ran through my veins fast and unexpectedly. I dropped the book which hit the floor with a heavy thud.

I looked at with a confused frown. I bent to pick it up and was stunned at how heavy it had gotten in the course of just a few seconds. Heart beating fast again, I shakily turned to page one.

I wanted to scream. _Runes_ covered the page from head to toe.

I quickly grabbed my phone and dialed Zane’s number.

_“Yeah?”_ she answered after the second ring, her voice hoarse.

“It worked!” I said fast and excited. “Zane, it worked! There are runes now, it’s not blank anymore!”

_“What?”_ she asked confused.

I wanted to say more then I looked at the radio. “I am so sorry! Were you asleep?”

_“No, I was practicing my astral projection skills, Wong. Of course I was flippin’ asleep!”_

I let out a throaty laugh. “Be here tomorrow at first light. That’s an order!”

_“I’m gonna shove that order –”_

I didn’t hear the rest of Zanthe’s loving message because I ended the conversation. The next day, my best friend in the world looked like she really would make good on her threat.

“This had better be good,” she warned me as she let her backpack drop to the floor.

As an answer, I handed her the book with a wide grin.

She raised a suspicious eyebrow at me then her eyes widened as she browsed the tome. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed.

“I know.”

“How?!”

I told her what I had done the previous night but when she asked me how I had gotten the idea, I hesitated. “I heard Jared,” I confessed.

“You, what?”

“I heard Jared’s voice. Or, I think I did… I dunno, it’s very confusing but Zane, I could have _sworn_ he had been in my room, banning me from his castle again.”

“What did he say exactly?” I told her. She thought for a moment. “On some weird level, I guess it makes sense.”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” I said, relieved that she had understood.

“But then…” She looked at the runes. “Why is it in this weird language?”

“Yeah, I haven’t figured that part out yet,” I confessed.

Zane laughed then looked at me with wide eyes. “What if you’re not supposed to?”

“Huh?”

“The title said for your _mind’s_ eye. When do we use our mind’s eye, Vala?”

I wanted to tell her she was being ridiculous but then I heard myself say, “In our dreams.”

“Exactly!” she agreed happy. “Now, what did you dream last night?”

I smiled guilty. “Nothing… I couldn’t sleep. I spent the entire night searching for a way to decipher those runes.”

Zane pressed her lips into an annoyed line. “May I remind you that it’s _my_ job to obsess over things, not yours?”

I mocked her words comically.

She laughed. “So what’s the book about?”

I smiled shyly, avoiding her gaze.

“You didn’t discover anything, did you?”

“Oh, screw you! I looked everywhere I could think of but those runes are unlike anything ever recorded. I even tried to use _Lord of the Rings_ as reference.”

“You get extra points for imagination,” Zane congratulated me then her smile faded. “You don’t suppose…”

“No, I don’t,” I answered her unfinished question.

“But!”

“Drop it, Zane. The thing’s from this planet, that’s a fact. It could be that whoever wrote this book must have combined multiple styles of runes in order to make it almost impossible for someone to decrypt it.”

“Do you have _any_ idea what that means?”

“Yeah, that whoever wrote this thing is a genius.”

“Right, but if what you suspect is true, then we might as well give up now because it will take us our entire lives to decode this.”

“More, even.”

We looked at each other for a moment.

“So where does that leave us?” Zane asked.

I checked my watch. “It leaves us very late for school.”

“Really…”

But she didn’t stand a chance because as I had spoken those words, a fresh new wave of anger threatened to overwhelm me. I had had jokes played on me but that took the spotlight. The nerve of that, that, _that man!_

First, he screwed with my childhood. Then, he screwed with my sexuality. Now _he literally screws with my brain?!_ That was too much than I could handle.

And yet! And yet, I took the damned book at university with me. Instead of paying attention to what the teacher was explaining about the inner workings of the penal code, I found myself studying every symbol on every page over and over again. Maybe, just maybe, if I looked over them hard enough, they would change to plain, simple letters and I could uncover the book's secrets.

_Yeah, and at the same time, I could learn how to abolish world hunger and be the first woman to unite the nations on the entire planet as one._

I chuckled at that thought as I returned to my car. By some miracle, nobody had noticed that I wasn't looking over laws in class. I threw my bag in the passenger seat but carefully put the book next to it. I looked at the two items and burst into laughter at my silliness. I revved the engine and headed back home.

_Why, in the name of all things sane. Why! Am I surprised I am_ not _heading home?_

I never learned not to listen to music after something strange happened to me. I was half way to the stone castle when a particularly strong rhythm guitar solo woke me to my senses. I mentally reproached myself as I turned around but changed directions once more.

I parked in front of the Academy of Arts just as my best friend was exiting. She smiled widely and waved at me as she headed my way. I quickly cleared the passenger seat.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” Zane greeted me after she got in.

“I felt like you maybe needed a ride home,” I said smiling.

“Oh, I always need that,” she chuckled. She put her seat belt on. “But there wouldn't be an ulterior motive for your generosity, dear Vala, now, would there?”

“Ha, ha, and ha,” I mocked, making her laugh. I revved the engine again and put the car into motion.

We drove in silence for a moment, both of us lost in our own thoughts. “So have you managed to make heads or tails of those runes yet?”

“How, how, how the hell could you have possibly known that?” I stuttered, half amused, half annoyed.

“I told you. Obsessing over things is my specialty.”

_“Neah, deah, teh,”_ I mocked comically. Zanthe laughed again but the look on her face told me she expected an answer. I sighed. “No,” I admitted frustrated. “I haven't figured out jack shit.”

“Yeah,” she said thoughtful. “I may have a theory.”

“Do share with the class, master.”

Zane grinned, her reptilian green eyes sparkling mischievously. “I'll tell you tomorrow, after _you'll_ tell me about your dream.”

I looked at her with a calculated expression. There was something about the way she said those words that sent a shiver up my spine.

However, for the rest of the day, I buried myself in my dissertation again. While I worked, I was free of any other influences which essentially meant I was in heaven. It wasn't like I didn't enjoy a good rip from reality but my current predicament was just ridiculous. In addition to the fact that I was seriously questioning whether or not I had lost my mind, I found myself questioning whether or not there was such thing as magic! Which was ridiculous.

...wasn't it?

I blinked, letting out a small gasp. I had written five pages in a few minutes though I had no idea what about. I shook my head then inspected my work. I thought I would have a heart attack. Those pages were complete nonsense.

_No, not nonsense. Those are words written in Elvish._

I covered my mouth so that I wouldn't scream! How the hell could I possibly know that? Heck, how could I have written five pages in another language without realizing it?!

I decided I had had enough work for one day. I went into the living room and spent the evening with my Kyra and parents. It was nothing short of bliss to listen to them comment on the talk show they were watching. The topic of debate was over the latest scandal involving a politician and the president's wife. Which had been sparked over a leaked photograph of the two sharing a drink at a meeting. Sometimes, a little dose of stupidity was exactly what I needed.

But then the horrible moment of bedtime befell us and I dreaded going to sleep. Who knew what obscenities my sick and twisted brain would show me? And with my luck, everything would be in Elvish.

I reluctantly wished my parents a good night then had a splendid thought. I would delay my date with my bed by taking a long shower. My mother had to ruin my plans and I had to keep it short because she said that if she didn't wash Kyra that night, she wouldn't for the rest of the week. Grumpy, I changed into fresh pajamas then got under the covers. My previous night of no sleep caught up with me in that second and I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

I had never felt as peaceful as I did in that moment. I felt myself smile in the darkness, humming softly as I got more comfortable. But I was warm, like I was bathing in sunlight on a mid-summer’s day.

I half opened my eyes. Light greeted me. I fully opened them.

Tall, emerald green grass was all around me, its blades sparkling gently with early dew. Butterflies of all shapes and sizes were flying freely, their color palettes glistening brightly. I smiled silly then noticed a wide, beautiful lake not too far from my position. I heard laughter behind me and turned to see.

Men, women and children were enjoying a day off in nature. They were having picnics or playing with a ball, or chasing each other in the woods. Or in the heavens above, their angelic wings carrying them across the blue sky. Some had the ability to change into animals or to blend in with the scenery perfectly, thus frightening their intended targets splendidly. I laughed at how a boy was scared by a winged girl who had changed her appearance into that of a tree trunk.

Then I felt how someone sat down close to me. I looked to my left.

The Goblin Prince was smiling at me, his mismatched eyes like gold and ruby in the sunlight. I couldn't help but smile as well.

“I am happy you have finally come here,” he told me, his voice a symphony of smooth, deep sounds.

I giggled. “Have you been waiting long?” I asked, shifting closer to him.

“Too long...” he said in a low whisper, leaning in slowly.

I met him half way and tasted the sunrise on his soft lips.

I woke up with a loud and hungry gasp for air. My body was covered in sweat and I had gripped the sheets so tightly, I had ripped them in half.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I realize it's going (painfully) slow but bear with me! It will be worth it. ;)
> 
> ...I hope. ^_^"


End file.
